The Mentalist — Things I Wish the Show Had Given Us 🍵🔴
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Okay, I need to vent and also gush because *The Mentalist* lives rent-free in my head and I have **so many** thoughts about what this show could have been with just a little more breathing room. Anyone else feel like we were robbed of so much potential? Here's my wishlist:
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**1. Angela Jane — The Woman Behind Everything 💔**
She is literally the reason the *entire show exists* — Patrick Jane's whole journey, his pain, his obsession, his eventual redemption — all of it traces back to Angela. And yet we barely knew her. Give us a full episode dedicated to her. Who was she beyond being a victim? What was she like as a mother, as a wife, as a person? She deserved to exist on screen as a *whole human being*, not just a tragedy that happened to Patrick Jane.
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**2. How Jane Met Angela & The Life They Built Together 💛**
This is the backstory the show owed us and never delivered. How did a carnival boy and con artist end up with a woman like Angela? Where did they meet? Was it chaotic and electric or quiet and unexpected? Show us their courtship, their early years, the moment they found out they were having Charlotte. Show us what a *happy* Patrick Jane looked like — because understanding what he lost is the only way to truly understand what Red John took from the world, not just from him.
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**3. What Happened to Jane's Father? 🎠**
The carnival background is criminally underexplored (pun intended). Was his dad the one who pushed him into the mentalist act? Was he abusive, loving, complicated — *all three*? Did he know what his son was becoming? There's a whole shadow of a man behind Patrick Jane's origin story and the show just… never went back for him.
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**4. What Happened to the Psychic He Dated? 😟**
This one still bothers me. She was interesting, she was warm, and then Red John took her — and the show sort of moved on far too quickly. She deserved a proper resolution. Did she survive? Did the experience break her? Did Jane ever look back and carry that guilt? A follow-up episode would have added so much emotional weight to what Red John actually *cost* people beyond Jane's family.
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**5. Give Us a Red John POV Episode 🔴🩸**
Imagine a full episode — no Jane, no CBI — just Red John operating in the shadows. Planning. Manipulating. Committing his crimes with that terrifying calm. Make us understand the *architecture* of his evil. The show always kept him mythological, which worked — but one deeply unsettling deep-dive episode would have elevated him to all-time great TV villain territory.
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**6. HOW Did Red John Know So Much?! 🤯**
This is the question that keeps me up at night. Seven names whispered on a deathbed. Surveillance, informants, the Blake Association — okay, sure. But the *precision* of his knowledge? The way he always seemed three steps ahead? The show hand-waved a lot of this with "the network" and I wanted *receipts*. A proper explanation of his intelligence operation would have made the revelation so much more satisfying instead of leaving fans divided.
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**7. The Blake Association Deserved More Screen Time 🕵️**
A secret society of corrupt law enforcement embedded across the entire system — that's a *phenomenal* conspiracy thriller premise. And the show introduced it and then wrapped it up almost apologetically. Give us the scope of it. Show us how deep the rot went. That storyline had prestige drama written all over it.
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**8. They Should NOT Have Killed Vega. Full Stop. 🚨**
She was finally starting to grow on us. She was enthusiastic, eager, raw around the edges in the best way — and they killed her just to give Wylie a sad backstory? No. Absolutely not. She had *seasons* of potential ahead of her and the show casually threw that away. Still not over it. Never will be.
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The Mentalist gave us some of the most satisfying television of its era, but man — the road not taken haunts me. Anyone else have things they wish the writers had explored?
*Settle in, bring tea, and let's discuss.* 🍵
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*#TheMentalist #PatrickJane #RedJohn #AngelaJane #TVShows*